Despatches
Scouting out a bargain at London’s quirkiest art sale; the Bolshoi takes centre stage; a sculpture that makes the wind sing; quaffing a beer on the West Bank
[ LONDON ]
Luck of the draw
SOLICITOR PERRY HILL IS REMEMBERING THE MOMENT HE DISCOVERED he’d bought an original Grayson Perry and a Gerhard Richter for less than £100. ‘I fell to my knees,’ he admits, slightly shamefaced. ‘But it was so exciting.’ Hill is a regular at RCA Secret, held at the Royal College of Art each November and now in its 18th year.
Some 2,800 postcard-sized works are up for grabs, each priced at £45. Some of the contributors are art-world heavyweights such as David Bailey and Tracey Emin, others unknown RCA students. As the cards are signed on the reverse, you don’t find out who your purchases are by until you’ve handed over the cash. (Can you spot which of the postcards, right, are by big names? For answers, see far right.)
The artists’ identities are closely guarded, says curator Wilhelmina Bunn. ‘We’ve got a staff of just two people and will never tell the secret. We have student helpers, but they’re not allowed to handle the work.’
The postcards are on display at the RCA and online from 18 November, with the sale on Saturday 26.
The doors open at 8am, and each collector is limited to four cards. Competition is fierce for the early places in the queue, and while the first 50 spots are raffled off by the college, after that it’s first come, first served. ‘Some people camp for five or six days,’ says Hill. ‘I’ve never done more than 24 hours though.’ Others turn up in the early morning, resigned to a long wait.
Most of the big-name artists stick to their signature style and themes, says Bunn, which means pieces by the likes of Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry are soon snapped up. Nonetheless, sharp-eyed latecomers can sometimes make spectacular finds. ‘Among so many cards, it’s easy to miss something,’ confirms Hill. ‘If I showed you my Damien Hirst, you’d look at it and think, “Yes, that’s obviously by Hirst.” It wasn’t so obvious when it was one card among 2,800.’
In 2007, a card by Peter Doig sold at Sotheby’s for £42,000 and a skull drawn by Hirst fetched £15,600. Most collectors prefer to hold on to their purchases, though. Hill is no exception. ‘Never say never, because you don’t know what’s around the corner, but I’d love to keep them all and leave them to my children. That’s my legacy to them.’ Elizabeth Winding www.rca.ac.uk/secret
[ MOSCOW ]
Curtain up
BEHIND THE BOLSHOI THEATRE’S STATELY FAÇADE is a hum of activity. The sound of drills and hammers echoes through the building as Mikhail Sidorov, spokesman for the general contractor, leads the way up the stairs to the grand foyer. With quiet satisfaction, he points out the period details that have been meticulously restored, from the hand-carved alabaster vases on the stairwells to the antique light fittings that cast a warm gleam over the stairs.
It’s the culmination of a six-year restoration project, involving thousands of workers and skilled artisans. ‘For many of the people who worked on the restoration of the theatre, whether they were applying gold-leaf by hand or carving the alabaster for the stairwells, the restoration was the project of a lifetime,’ says Sidorov.
It hasn’t been an easy journey. Closed in 2005, the theatre was originally set to reopen in 2008 – but unforeseen delays, spiralling costs and a series of hirings and firings put paid to that. For a start, the builders discovered that the old oak pilings supporting the theatre were perilously close to collapse, and the foundations had to be painstakingly rebuilt a metre at a time.
Six long years and an eye-watering £413 million later, the theatre is ready to be unveiled – and its ballet and opera troupes, exiled to the smaller second theatre, are poised to make their return. Restored to its appearance in 1856, when it was reopened to mark the coronation of Tsar Alexander II, the theatre is a glittering slice of baroque excess. In the foyer, silk wall panels are hand-embroidered with the tsarist double-headed eagles; up above, benignly-smiling cherubs gleam with freshly-applied gold leaf.
Not all of the changes are cosmetic. The auditorium has been returned to its original violin shape, and the sound-deadening concrete cladding installed in the 50s ripped out. In its place is panelling made of the same resinous pine used to make violins, meaning that singers’ voices should reach even the furthest seats with perfect clarity.
After a gala reopening on 28 October, the new season will kick off with Mikhail Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, an opera based on a Russian folktale, followed by Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. So classic a line-up should reassure those who were resistant to the theatre’s reinvention. ‘The Bolshoi theatre is a living, breathing organism,’ points out general director Anatoly Iksanov. ‘It needs to advance to survive.’ Rachel Morarjee www.bolshoi.ru/en
[ MIDDLE EAST ]
Here’s to us
SIX MEN HOLDING LARGE MUGS OF BEER stand onstage, their arms outstretched. A bent elbow or spilled drink results in instant dismissal. After six long minutes, only one competitor remains. He has a well-earned drink, takes a bow, and bathes in the glory of being the male beer-holding champion of the West Bank (the women are up next). That’s West Bank as in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories.
This is not a place known for its drinking games. But every year since 2005, a village on the outskirts of Ramallah has hosted the Arab world’s biggest beer festival. Less than 2,000 people turned up to the inaugural event. This year it’s closer to 15,000. There’s barely space to stand, let alone walk through the crowd carrying a round of drinks, but the atmosphere is fantastic. Almost everybody is smiling. Many are slightly drunk.
That said, it’s hardly Munich. The only available beer is Taybeh, brewed locally by Nadim Khoury and his family. While we’re here to celebrate Taybeh, the first and only Palestinian beer, we’re also here to celebrate Taybeh, the charming, picturesque village. Almost every resident has turned up to sell food, crafts and accessories.
‘The idea is that the local community get involved and become part-owners of the festival,’ says Khoury, whose brother, rather helpfully, is the village mayor. ‘Everybody looks forward to the festival all year because they get to sell the products of Taybeh.’
It’s not only the biggest festival in the area, it’s the biggest cultural and social event in all of the Palestinian territories. While the majority of rappers, rockers, comedians and dancers performing over the weekend are from the West Bank, others have arrived from farther afield: the band Metal Cambra have travelled from Spain. For others, such as Toot Ard, a reggae-rock fusion band from Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, it’s an all too rare chance to perform live.
‘It’s all about celebrating our Palestinian identity,’ says Khoury. That and drinking beer. Matthew Lee
[ MANCHESTER ]
Wind song
Multimedia artist Luke Jerram is a man of soaring ambitions. In July his Sky Orchestra installation saw seven hot-air balloons drifting over London at dawn, each equipped with speakers playing a different element of a musical score. His ongoing Play Me, I’m Yours project has deposited hundreds of pianos on streets in cities across the globe. Now comes Aeolus. Named for the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology, it is a 10-ton, six-metre-high stainless-steel sculpture designed ‘to make audible the silent shifting patterns of the wind and to visually amplify the sky’.
Bristling with polished tubes, it is anchored by aeolian harp strings that vibrate in the wind. The sound has an eerie quality (‘like the aliens landing’, says Jerram). Following residencies at Lyme Park in Cheshire and Cornwall’s Eden Project, the sculpture is now at a waterfront site on Salford Quays in Manchester. It’s a world away from the original inspiration for Aeolus, which came from the artist’s travels. In Iran in 2007, Jerram met a man who built qanat – traditional desert aqueducts whose tunnels stretch for miles underground. ‘He told me the wells would sometimes sing in the wind, giving me the idea of investigating architecture and acoustics.’ Iran’s ancient mosques were another source of inspiration, with their ‘extraordinary’ use of light and geometric precision – both echoed by Jerram’s unearthly, strangely beautiful sculpture. Elizabeth Winding Until 13 Nov at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, Manchester; www.lukejerram.com
